


smoke and mirrors

by blacksatinpointeshoes



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (this is also part of the angst), (well Martin tries, Addiction, Autistic Jon Sims, Character Study, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Stimming, Survivor Guilt, Withdrawal, canon-typical absolute destruction of Jon's physical and mental state, canon-typical unrequited Martin pining, meltdowns, that doesn't turn out too well)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-20 20:23:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18131657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacksatinpointeshoes/pseuds/blacksatinpointeshoes
Summary: Jon Sims has never been addicted to anythi- no. Well, no, that’s not right.Cigarettes. He was addicted to cigarettes. It’s funny. He almost forgot.Here, let’s start over.or, the one where the need for statements gets bad. Martin tries to help.





	smoke and mirrors

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what possessed me to write this but here we are! enjoy :)
> 
> set late s3.

Jon Sims has never been addicted to anythi- no. Well, no, that’s not right. 

Cigarettes. He was addicted to cigarettes. It’s funny. He almost forgot. 

Here, let’s start over.

Jon was a smoker in university, but he wasn’t even properly committed to it. It was the act of smoking that enthralled him, putting the little stick between his lips and feeling it coat his tongue; he liked the sensory aspect but didn’t care for the rest. Jon smoked when he needed to concentrate, mostly during exam season and study leave, and during those weeks he could be found with papers strewn about his desk, a dancing cloud of grey spewing tendrils into polluted air. 

It made him cough, though, and the coughing bothered him more than the smoke appeased him, so Jon stopped smoking. 

It’d been an easy decision, mentally, but his body was tempted. His body wanted to roll a cigarette between his fingers, put it between his lips, and lose himself in the mindless swirling, spitting patterns the smoke would create. His body wanted to stop the headaches and the roiling nausea; his body wanted to cave in and seek the familiar matte relief of grey. The pain actually kept him in bed one day, mind scattered across the floor of his cinder block dorm, but Jon didn’t care. He stopped. Despite everything, it was simple.

Years go by before Jon picks up another cigarette. It’s for the usual reason - stress - and of  _ course  _ that stress is caused by the Magnus Institute, of course it is. He hadn’t missed smoking, exactly, but there was something comforting about the old routine, like sliding on a suede leather glove fitted perfectly to his hand. It’s been a while since Jon has allowed himself the sensory outlets he knows he requires, and it feels privately guilty. The smoke is soft and dusty and Jon draws it in like he needs it - well, obviously he needs it, that’s the whole point of nicotine - but it calms him down, and that’s what counts. 

He smokes intermittently from then on, an unpredictable geyser jetting poison into his lungs. Jon even goes so far as to keep a pack in his desk, then his jacket pocket. On the day he records Jane Prentiss’s statement, he’s shaken enough to walk fully outside of the Institute, already lighting the cigarette before he breached the doors. He pretends that his hands aren’t trembling. 

Jon presses his back to the building’s side wall and tilts his head towards the filthy London sky, and he breathes in. He calms down. He goes back inside. 

All the same, Jon doesn’t consider himself addicted; there are times when he goes weeks without a cigarette. Admittedly, as his paranoia mounts, his indulgence becomes more frequent, but Jon refuses to smoke at or around Georgie’s flat. Once again he quickly put an end to that habit, though he does keep the packet on hand. 

He’s in control. He knows what he’s doing. If there’s any part of his life  _ at all _ over which Jon has control, it’s his body. When the compulsion to record begins, Jon starts to realise that his mind is not his own. But at least he has his body. It’s his own. He is living and breathing in his own body, and he can control this one thing. 

Until he can’t. 

The dull trickle of withdrawal symptoms is bad enough; for it to happen in America is somehow much worse. There’s a joke in there somewhere, but Jon can’t muster the energy to make it. He just feels sick. He thinks he’s coming down with something, actually, once the headache turns into outright vertigo and he wakes at midnight in an unfamiliar hotel room, shaking and feverish. He was on the verge of calling a doctor, maybe cutting his trip short, when the envelope comes. 

The ease with which Jon had been pulled into the statement was embarrassing. He listens to the recording afterward and is horrified to hear his voice change, pumped full of power only when he drags a man’s supernatural trauma into the open. All the same he cannot get that feeling out of his head; he cannot help that the words of the statement felt like a drink of ice cold water against his parched and aching throat. After he finished recording, Jon slept, and he slept well.

That  _ never  _ happens. 

It takes a week and a half before Jon well and truly calls himself ‘addicted.’ He didn’t want to think about it, but he starts to feel ill on the plane ride back to the UK, and when Daisy picks him up Jon hardly says a word to her. It’d been three days or so without a statement and he was beginning to  _ hurt.  _ Everywhere. When Jon only gives a brief “Thank you” when they arrive at the Institute before locking himself in his office with a statement and a cigarette, Daisy seems much more disappointed than surprised.

Jon doesn’t know how to feel about that. 

He starts… well, there’s no good way to put this. He starts stealing statements. Stealing might be too strong a word, because Elias definitely knows he’s doing it, but ‘removing delicate artifacts without anyone’s permission or consent’ certainly  _ feels  _ like stealing to Jon. He doesn’t  _ want  _ to, mind, but he needs the statements. He needs them to sleep, and he needs them to feel like a human being while he’s awake. Or to feel like whatever the hell he is. Jon doesn’t even know anymore. 

The stealing isn’t right. He knows that. The alternative is worse. 

It’s only a matter of time before Jon slips up. He doesn’t get caught; (like he thought, Elias has already seen his actions and doesn’t particularly care) he  _ runs out. _ Jon’s staying in his new flat, and when he reaches for a fresh statement to read after dinner, his hand only touches the cold, wooden countertop. 

Jon is a bit ashamed to say he panics, heart leaping into his throat, and he’s dressed to leave the house so quickly he doesn’t remember putting on his shoes. Before he can open the door, though, reality catches up to him: it’s nearly 11:30 at night. The Institute is locked. Everyone is gone. Jon is trapped in his own home with no statement, and no means of getting one. In desperation, he thinks of Elias, but isn’t sure that will do any good.  _ No, _ he decides slowly, reluctantly,  _ contacting Elias will be no help at all.  _

Jon suddenly regrets eating dinner.

When he turns in, he doesn’t sleep. His chest is spiked by fear and the inevitable, and he lies awake calculating the number of hours it’s been since he last took a statement. Tonight’s statement was important; he didn’t record anything in the archives earlier in the day. That, Jon concludes eventually, staring at the ceiling, was why he hadn’t picked up any more documents to take home, and  _ damn  _ if that realisation doesn’t sting. He feels as if he’s been struck twice, like he’s running on borrowed time. He has had a headache for hours.

Jon is tired, yes, but he’s always tired. Some power higher than himself decided that ‘bone-tired’ was too good for Jonathan Sims, and so now an invisible hand scrapes away at Jon’s exhausted tenacity with a noisy file, flakes of his dwindling coherence floating around his shoulders before coming to eventually settle at his feet. It’s nothing new. 

What’s new is the shaking, and the chills, and the freezing, and the migraine drilling through Jon’s skull. What’s new is that this process is descending so much more rapidly than it did in Chicago. What’s new is that Jon has gone 26 hours without a statement and he is in Hell, and he’s trying his damndest to sleep through it. 

That’s almost a joke, though. Sleep is a game of roulette regardless. But Jon would prefer his goriest dreams, the ones where the innocents are torn apart alive and he can only watch; Jon would prefer his saddest dreams, the ones where a life falls apart with a single, coincidental encounter; Jon would prefer the dreams closest to him over  _ this.  _ Jon would prefer anything over  _ this.  _ Jon would--

No. No, he couldn’t. He  _ wouldn’t.  _

The only thing worse than this would be the dreams about Sasha. Those aren’t even supernatural. Those are just nightmares, and guilt. Real nightmares. Trauma nightmares. Nightmares of Jon’s own creation. The Eye doesn’t make him think about Sasha, that’s purely his own misery. His own fault. It’s all Jon. 

At least something is.

Sometimes it feels like Sasha is the only part of him that remembers how to be human, which is ironic. It’s just -- well, it’s just that Jon thinks he can see her face when he dreams about her, and even as she dies over and over again he always keeps his eyes locked. Every single time it comes - Sasha in the tunnels, Sasha with a tape recorder, and as the Stranger surrounds her, she looks to a hole in the wall and sees Jon, just watching - he tries to memorise her features. He tries to remember the woman to match the snippets of the voice he has on tape, asking laughingly how to pronounce ‘calliope.’ He tries to hold on. He really does try.

He always forgets by the time he wakes up. 

Now, the only image he can apply to her name is the melting, awful, NotSasha, a creation of the Stranger, its dual voice echoing in his head. Jon is overwhelmed even thinking about it in the dark safety of his own bedroom, vertigo and guilt churning in his stomach, and seared into his mind is a thing that is not human. Jon remembers being consumed with anxiety and terror in the tunnels, trying so desperately to leave any mark on the world that would prove he had been there, and his head, his head, his -- 

Jon stumbles out of his bedroom, nearly tripping on his quilt, and feels that the only good thing that’s happened tonight is that he makes it to the toilet before he starts retching. The light in the bathroom only makes everything worse, and the light from outside contrasts harshly with the artificial bulbs. Jon left his glasses on his nightstand, so he’s blurred and dizzy and shaking like a leaf. His watery eyes won’t focus, and the floor is a rolling, twirling top, and he wants to vanish into thin air, to experience anything but  _ this. _

It’s been a while since he’s had a meltdown - or, well, a while since he’s admitted it. Either way this is the same sensory overload on top of everything, sitting comfortably in the crevices of a migraine and balancing nicely on Jon’s skull. There are knives peeling back his eyelids like skinned grapes, and the pressure of the headache begins to split him open from the crown to the nape of his neck, invading him with light, as horrific as any monster. 

There are birds chirping and Jon wishes vehemently that the nuisances were dead. 

Wait. 

_ Wait.  _

There’s light from outside. There are birds chirping. It’s  _ morning.  _ Jon might still be in Hell but at least it’s morning. Morning means that someone’s at the Magnus Institute, and --

And that someone is Martin. It’s Martin; Jon  _ knows  _ it’s Martin. It might be part of the fact that he just knows things now, but Martin is a morning person. In fact, Jon was so surprised by this fact that it stuck to him like an unwanted burr which certainly had other places to be but happened to like Jon’s jumper that day. 

Jon has two choices: continue to endure this, or call Martin. He takes one blurry look at himself in the mirror - eyes red, hair sticking to his forehead, t-shirt collar drenched in sweat - and the decision is easy. 

It takes a long time for Jon to walk from the bathroom to the kitchen to pick up his phone. Too long. He has to do it with his eyes closed, one hand on the wall, trying to force his body into taking those precious few steps towards relief. Jon doesn’t go back for his glasses. He can’t. He just punches in Martin’s number painstakingly, every beep an assault against bleeding ears. It’s one of the few Jon has memorised. 

“Hello?” Martin picks up on the second ring, sounding concerned, surprised, confused. One of the three. Maybe all of them. Jon isn’t much in a position for analysing tones at the moment, but he nearly cries when Martin answers. 

“M- _ Martin,”  _ Jon breathes into the receiver, then coughs. His voice is thick and raspy and hoarse, and even though he’d planned to say something eloquent, the words clog the back of his throat. “Martin, I-”

“Woah, you sound awful, Jon,” Martin says with a nervous chuckle, and Jon can hear him shift his weight. “Are you okay? Do you - um, do you need something? Is that why you called? Because I can -”

“A statement.” Jon forces out the words with a long exhale, pinching his temple hard. It’s not like replacing one type of pain with another will do any good, but Jon tries. It doesn’t work. Obviously. 

“A statement?” Martin echoes, a hint of fear still worming its way through the phone. “Jon, um, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you just sound  _ sick.  _ I really think a statement is the last thing you need, um. Can I take you to a doctor? I dunno, you seemed fine at work, um, is this something you’ll need to go to A&E for? I mean-”

“A  _ statement,”  _ Jon repeats with more emphasis, suppressing the dark laugh that builds in his chest. It’s all he can say. They’re the only words that don’t make him want to gag. “I  _ need  _ it, Martin.”

“Listen,” Martin interrupts, his reedy voice made more buoyant with concern, “Can I - um, can I come to you? I can drive you to a hospital. Or - or I can bring you something. Soup. Do you have, you know, sick food? You don’t have to be the Archivist right now, or whatever it is, I mean, you can just be Jon and you can let me  _ help  _ you!”

“You don’t -” Jon is hit with another roiling wave of nausea and his grip on the kitchen table turns white-knuckled. “You don’t understand, Martin, I need you to bring me a statement and that’s  _ it.”  _

Growing increasingly desperate, Martin cries, “Jon, can you please just let yourself rest  _ for once!”  _ and something inside Jon breaks.

“I’m an  _ addict,  _ Martin,” he snarls, and the whole world goes quiet. Jon’s teeth are bared in a furious, ugly, vulnerable grimace as he spits out the words. A confession. A damnation. “There is nothing wrong with me  _ but  _ the statements, and when I have one I’ll be fine. I’ll be better. I am  _ always  _ going to be the Archivist so long as this persists and  _ you,  _ Martin, you cannot fix the supernatural with soup and no, believe me, I’m not overworking myself, I’m just living, so  _ please - _ ” Jon draws in a shaky breath and continues before the consequences of his words can catch up to him. “Please. Bring a statement. Bring two. Maybe I’ll even sleep.”

There’s a long, long silence on the other end. Jon’s headache attacks with such a vengeance he can barely see. He can’t even wonder whether Martin hates him now. 

“Okay,” says Martin finally, so soft Jon barely catches it. “I’m on my way.”

More silence.

“Thank you,” says Jon, when he remembers how. His words only reach static on a call long-since ended.

Martin never hears it, but he brings the statements anyway. 

He even brings soup. 

**Author's Note:**

> as always, comments and kudos are so dearly appreciated. if you'd like to continue this conversation or just yell about the magnus archives, feel free to hit up my tumblr, @thoughtsbubble. thank you for reading!


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